


an hourglass universe

by vaporstretch (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Porn, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-Time Skip, Pro Volleyball Player Bokuto Koutarou, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28927665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/vaporstretch
Summary: It makes Keiji think back to those moments that had felt like liminal spaces, an endlessly dreary landscape of speculations. Moments where he would wonder if the love in him had been enough, if the love in Kotaro had been enough, and if the love that existed in the spaces between them had been enough to replace what love trickled out of them respectively over time. He doesn't let himself come up with an answer, lets them hang in the air instead. Too afraid to admit to himself that perhaps the love had been enough all along.▪︎▪︎▪︎A post-break up fic where Akaashi and Bokuto navigate through love and grief(tw: there is mention of a suicide. doesn't involve the main characters in particular.)
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	an hourglass universe

The curl of steam that rises from Keiji’s third (or maybe fourth or perhaps fifth) cup of coffee fogs the lenses of his glasses, blurring his vision momentarily so that the text on his phone becomes an obscure inky blend of black and grey. But right before the ill-timed approach of the cup to his face had prevented him from effectively reading the message, he was able to make out one word in the short paragraph of characters on screen. 

Bokuto.

It had been a little over two months since their break-up. 63 days to be exact. 1512 hours. He doesn’t exactly agonize over it anymore, no longer feels the frustration twist in random parts of himself as when it had first registered in his mind that they didn’t even last two years, that they had only been together one year, four months, two weeks, and one day. That’s 502 days. 12048 hours. Not exactly a satisfying numerical figure to look at. It felt like a concert cut short in the middle of a good song, like having to stop eating in the middle of a good meal, like abruptly being forced to put down a good book. 

What they had was good. Keiji remembers that much. They operated in the reliable comfort built upon years of familiarity, upon the simple ‘I’ve wanted this for so long’ whispered like a breathless prayer when they shared their first kiss on their second date which had taken place a week after they agreed to start seeing each other exclusively. Just seven days after the beginning of everything. 168 hours.

In the 502 days that they were together, they had gone on to more dates. Only two out of those dates ended up in something more overtly sexual, something that extended beyond the kisses that happened in between the moments of sentimental invocations that were more blush-inducing than the feel of one mouth against another. 

The first had been an awkward handjob in Kotaro’s apartment, on Kotaro’s couch. It was the first time Keiji had cum other than his own stain his hands. The second time was on the 493rd day. They were both buzzed with alcohol and had stumbled into Keiji’s apartment in Tokyo, feverish and giddy. But as Kotaro had knelt between his thighs, Keiji had felt the oncoming waves of nausea, a result of poor alcohol tolerance and too much sodium from the bowl of ramen at dinner. They had to postpone it for some other time because Keiji was in danger of hurling all over Kotaro whose mouth was already full of his cock, while Keiji’s unfortunately was full of _ sake _ and noodles and maybe bile. 

Kotaro never got around to sucking him off. Keiji never got around to taking him hard and hot in his hands a second time. Because on the 502nd day, everything ended. 

Keiji rubs his glasses clean with the small, square cloth he keeps on his desk. Just one of many he has stored in other convenient nooks and crannies of his life. He has two in Kotaro’s place in Osaka. He’d left them there and most of the time Keiji would forget that two tiny parts of himself continued to be tucked away in that one bedroom space. He’d rather forget than entertain the thought of them chucked in some trash bag and hauled into a large recycling bin. 

He eventually slips his glasses back on and checks his phone to read the text message from Konoha.

_ I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Bokuto’s sister passed away. Bokuto’s coming home for the wake and we’re thinking of dropping by to say our condolences. You can come join us if you want. _

He reads the text a second time. A third time. A fourth time. And in each instance, Keiji’s confusion grows. How? Why? But further, if Keiji hadn’t been the first outside of Kotaro’s immediate family to know, then which one was he? The second? The third? The fourth? 

_ What happened? _ He texts back.  _ Was she sick? Did she get into an accident? _

A minute later, his phone pings to notify him of the reply. 

_ She took her own life. I don’t know the details, but that’s what they said. _

They. Keiji wasn’t the second to know. Maybe not even the third or the fourth. He feels lightheaded, reminded again of how it had been two months. How it had been 63 days. 1512 hours. Then guilt swiftly punches through the surface to slap some sense into him.

_ Someone died,  _ he scolds himself.  _ His sister died. _

He thinks about calling Kotaro. Just to ask him how he’s doing. They did this a lot back then.  _ Have you eaten? How was work? How was practice? How are you? I miss holding you. I miss kissing you. When can I see you? I miss you. _

He allows his thumb to hover over the screen, right above the green call button. It’s been some time since they’ve talked over the phone and Keiji wonders if Kotaro would still sound the same on the other end now that circumstances are different, now that the phone call isn’t just another excuse to say sweet-nothings to each other because back then distance had spurned an incessant longingness in them both and the only way to remotely quell it was by racking up their phone bills. Financial regret came in later. The instant gratification was an irreplaceable high that had frequented their days and nights during those 502 days.

But it’s been 63 days. 1512 hours. And he holds his breath as he presses call on his phone. It rings a few times before it gets picked up and the sound of an exhaled breath echoes in Keiji’s ear.

_ “Hello?” _ The voice is warm.  _ “Keiji?” _

“Hey,” his own voice, on the other hand, sounds odd. Strained. So he swallows before continuing. “I-I heard about your sister. I’m really sorry.”

Kotaro exhales again.  _ “I just--I don’t understand. I feel like it’s not real.” _

“I’m here to listen,” Keiji says. He’s said this to Kotaro in the past, and every single time Kotaro had something to get off his chest, Keiji was there. To listen as he had promised. He’d listen to him sulk about practice, whine about his condition during a match, sob over a drama he’d binge-watched. But never would he have imagined saying  _ I’m here to listen  _ when it involved a tragedy of this magnitude. And suddenly the words are heavy on his tongue. He’s not sure they would be enough this time.

_ “Are you coming to the wake, Keiji?”  _

He lets the words stew in his mind until it no longer registers as a question, but a test. A test for what exactly, he doesn’t know. But what Keiji is certain of instead is that maybe it doesn’t have to take four words to extend his comfort.  _ I’m here to listen _ becomes moot in this situation when maybe one word is all that it would take. Hopefully.

“Yes,” Keiji tells him. “Konoha-san texted me earlier and I’m planning on coming with the rest of the guys.” He doesn’t know why he felt the need to disclose this, but it slips out of him and Kotaro only hums out an  _ okay _ in response. 

“Well, umm, I’m sorry again. She--your sister was a lovely person,” Keiji says it as softly as he could manage, half-expecting a choked up sob resounding through the speaker of his phone at any given moment.

“Yeah,” Kotaro murmurs instead. “She was.”

Keiji chooses his next words carefully like a chess player assessing which piece to move on the board. 

“You can talk to me, Kotaro,” he whispers. “Only if you want to, that is.”

“Thanks,” was the reply he got from the other end. Another exhale. “Anyway, I still have to take the  _ shinkansen _ to Tokyo. I’ll see you guys soon.”

“Of course,” Keiji says.

“Bye, Keiji.”

“Bye.”

Kotaro hangs up first.

___________________

When he arrives home from work, Keiji goes through his usual routine--boiling water in his sleek navy blue kettle, arranging his things on his small desk by the window, and then rummaging through the refrigerator to see if there’s anything he can heat up while he waits for his kettle to sing so he can make himself a cup of tea. 

It’s a routine he’s done for months now. Around eight months maybe. That’s 243 days. Or 5832 hours. But it’s only been over the past 63 days that Keiji has had to adjust his routine. That’s because before, right in that overlap between swinging his fridge door open and scooping out tea leaves to put into his infuser, he would have his phone sandwiched between one ear and his shoulder calling Kotaro--that is if Kotaro hadn’t already called him while he was still kicking his shoes off at the  _ genkan _ .

Tonight, much like the past 62 days, his phone lays silently on the coffee table.

He finishes dinner quickly as usual and soon he’s peeling off layers of winter wear in the bathroom. He looks at himself in the mirror, not exactly a part of his routine, but an occasional and mostly unconscious gesture that reminds him of the lost vestiges of his youth. 

Keiji would be lying if he said he wasn’t the least bit insecure when he started dating Kotaro, an athlete who was all lean cut of muscle and firm skin. He had feared that Kotaro would suddenly touch him in places that were soft and doughy and as a result he would simply reel back in disgust. But one time, they had spent a weekend afternoon in bed and Kotaro had kissed him so deeply he failed to notice that a hand had slipped under his shirt, over his belly, skimming upwards until his shirt had ridden completely up, exposing his chest.

“What are you doing?” Keiji had chuckled. 

“I wanna kiss you here,” Kotaro had explained, palm flat against Keiji’s ribcage. “And here and here and here.”

He had touched him in those places that were soft and doughy and not once did he reel back in disgust.

That evening, he tries to remember those featherlight kisses on his skin, the warm graze of fingertips along his spine. When he feels his cock strain against the seam of his sweatpants, he pushes the garment down his thighs and holds himself cautiously.

_ I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this. _

But Keiji is soon writhing in his sheets as pleasurable heat pools in his lower abdomen. He strokes faster, imagining an alternate reality where he wasn’t too drunk that one time and on the brink of vomiting and that Kotaro had actually sucked him off. He releases with a breathy groan and catches his cum in his hands, a few stray drops finding their way on his thigh and hip.

He cleans up immediately, hoping that the act would distract him from the wave of guilt that’s already on a steady rise. 

It doesn’t distract him. He dry swallows a sleeping pill before crawling back to bed.

___________________

The hours that had followed after their break-up were perhaps one of the strangest hours of Keiji’s life. The ground below his feet didn’t feel real, the walls in his apartment had seemed like they were contracting and expanding. At first he had thought he would go into a default state of numbness, but instead he had felt hyper-aware of  _ everything _ \--the brightness of the lights in the office, the bitter taste of his coffee, the smell of newly photocopied manuscripts piled high on his desk. 

It went on for two days. 48 hours. 

_ After that _ came the numbness. It was as if the initial overstimulation of his senses had caused his brain to ultimately short-circuit and so there was just  _ nothing _ . Like lightning had struck him at full force and had zapped away all cognitive faculties of his being. This had happened for four days. 96 hours. Yet even so, the sensation was ironically unforgettable thus while it had been 60 days since this numbness had taken hold of him, Keiji knows when it’s threatening to come back. 

It’s familiar at this point. And he feels an inkling of it ripple through him once he sees Kotaro come into view dressed in a black suit.

Kotaro welcomes them, devoid of any of his usual exuberance. There’s still a visible hint of brightness in his eyes. Keiji thinks it’s only because he’s happy to see them. However, everything else is a  _ more _ toned down version of himself. It’s unlike anything Keiji has seen before.

“We’re so sorry, Bokuto,” Shirofuku says. It doesn’t feel normal to see the absence of playful banter between them both, but Keiji still appreciates these sides to them, these aspects of his friends that unravel only when time allows it. 

Keiji eventually makes eye contact with him and the tiniest smile appears on his face. Keiji returns it.

“Hey,” Kotaro says.

“Hey.”

For some reason, Keiji didn’t expect for him to be pulled into an embrace even though Kotaro had done the same with everyone else (even Washio). Yet here he is, wrapped up in Kotaro’s arms, swathed in a force that feels like home, one that he’s had such a privilege of living inside of over the course of 502 days. Keiji misses this. He misses  _ him. _

_ I miss you. _

The words stay lodged in his throat and they remain there even after they’ve pulled apart. 

“I’m so sorry,” Keiji whispers to him. “If there’s anything--”

“I’m happy you’re here, Keiji.”

Kotaro tells him this while he holds Keiji’s gaze steady and it’s taking everything in him--every pulsating fiber of his very being--from going in for another embrace. It’s been 64 days after all. 1536 hours since Kotaro has touched him. But he keeps these urges under lock and key, reminding himself why they’re here. Why Kotaro  _ needed _ them to be here.

Their group starts catching up as they do when they gather every now and then. Only this time, no one is swapping inside jokes or humorous memories of their teenhood. They talk in hushed tones, conversations half-hearted at best. Keiji looks over at Kotaro who must have sensed the weight of his stare and he turns around. 

Movies and dramas always make it look deceptively easy. Keiji comes to find out that it's not. He's never been anyone's ex before, and thus has never had to go through the motions of learning how to interact with an ex once everything is over. All he knows for sure is that he's caught in between this obscure limbo of wanting to be near Kotaro and wanting to stay away. So instead he shuffles his feet awkwardly, giving off the illusion of motion, but in reality he's glued in place.

It is in this very instant that Keiji understands how 64 days are ineffective at wiping away laboriously gathered inventory of personal details, because he sees Kotaro excuse himself and sees him eventually walk to where he's been standing. Keiji has always been able to keep up a facade to conceal his feelings of unease. Occasionally he wavers, but his tells are so minute that it takes someone who has been keeping close watch to notice. Kotaro had admitted to having been keeping close watch since he was 17.

They don't immediately say anything when Kotaro is finally near enough for Keiji to feel the heat radiate from his body. Suddenly it's as if Keiji were 16 again and Kotaro 17 and they're meeting each other for the first time in the expanse of their high school gymnasium--Kotaro whose aura could only be likened to a series of exclamation points while Keiji stands bashful yet smitten, already captivated by Kotaro for more than a year now. For 388 days. 9312 hours. 

Right now, as they stand in nostalgic silence, no longer in high school gym wear, but in black suits, Keiji scrambles for words in his head because he understands that this is no longer a club orientation where he only needs to state a name and a year level. After all, Kotaro knows almost everything there is to know about him already. Almost.

"How are you?" The words eventually tumble out of Keiji’s mouth. 

Kotaro shrugs. “It hasn’t sunk in yet I guess. I mean I’ve cried already, but it’s like my brain doesn’t exactly understand why my body feels sad, you know?"

The somberness somehow unnerves Keiji. 502 days together. Throw in the days spent as teenagers observing one another at a safe distance, and even then Keiji would admit that when it comes to Kotaro’s lowest of lows, he has  _ never _ appeared as deflated as he does now. Keiji wishes he could do more, but limited information brought by the novelty of the situation leaves him helpless. 

Another apology threatens to escape, but Keiji remembers learning the concept of semantic satiation when he was in university. A phenomenon where words tend to lose their meaning due to repetition.

He had wondered two weeks after the break-up whether it had been the casual  _ I love yous _ that had led to their undoing. Sadly, he wasn't able to count how many times they had said it, unsure of the exact number that had ultimately stripped the three-word declaration of its meaning. Sometimes Keiji wished he knew, just to assure himself that it had really meant  _ something _ to begin with or that at the very least, it had taken many attempts to hack away at it before it had transformed into something else. Something trivial.

Kotaro clears his throat. "So, uhh, I would really like to catch up. Properly, that is."

Keiji perks up. "Do you want to step outside to talk or--"

"Do you want to go grab dinner later?" Kotaro blurts out. 

The last time Keiji had heard those words with that voice, it had rolled off Kotaro's tongue with a flirty lilt. It had been just another date, another evening of feeling euphoric and believing that time could be disregarded without consequence. Kotaro had made him laugh. He had made Kotaro laugh.They had capped off the evening with kisses that were languid and gentle, tasting the savory traces of dinner and the sweetness of the shared slice of cake. They both knew that if Kotaro didn't have to go back to Osaka so early the next morning, they would have made love for hours. They never did. 

"Sure," Keiji replies. 

Kotaro smiles and it's so achingly familiar that Keiji feels his heart break a little.

"I'll call you."

Keiji nods and he shoves a hand inside his pocket, fingers curling around his phone. 

___________________

They both had enough sense to agree on a restaurant they had never been to before, which was admittedly quite difficult. Apparently, 502 days had seemed like enough time to go on a date in almost every food outlet of their liking in the sprawling metropolitan city of Tokyo. Thus explains how they wound up in a tiny steakhouse that had just opened which conveniently is four blocks away from Keiji's apartment. 

Keiji arrives first and he waits for twelve minutes before Kotaro finally comes through the restaurant's doors. 

"Did you wait long?" Kotaro asks while he slides into the seat across Keiji.

"Not at all," Keiji tells him. 

A waiter appears to take their orders. There's a moment of silence, indecisiveness painting Kotaro's face as he browses the menu. For a split-second, Keiji almost suggests that he'll get that one dish Kotaro is vaguely interested in so that Kotaro can order the one he actually wants to try and then they could simply share. A standard operating procedure between them during dinner dates which Keiji quickly remembers to be no longer applicable. They end up ordering the same dish.

The waiter leaves after confirming their orders and once they're alone again, Keiji realizes there's no interrupted conversation to resume. The same relative stillness from before the menus were placed in front of them flows back with ease and it makes Keiji fiddle with his fingers.

"How's work, by the way?" Kotaro plows through the silence.

Keiji does a shallow nod. "Good. Exhausting as usual, but good."

He notices Kotaro's eyes soften. "I'm glad to hear that."

"How's the team?" The ball's in Keiji's court. "I heard you guys made it to the semi-finals."

"Yeah," Kotaro confirms, sounding a bit more energized. "It's this weekend actually. The semis."

Keiji counts. Two days. 48 hours.

"Well I'm rooting for you," Keiji smiles. "As always."

"Thanks," Kotaro says, mirroring his grin. "As always."

The food arrives and they dig in. A few minutes of prodding and chewing later, they pause at the same time, shooting each other pointed looks before subtly grimacing.

"This steak is so dry," Kotaro chuckles.

Keiji tries to contain the laugh that's itching to burst out. So instead, something that sounds like a giggle and a snort pushes through and in turn it draws out an actual laugh from Kotaro.

"We should have ordered two different things," Keiji says after taking a deep breath. 

"We really should have."

They continue to eat, tolerating the barely palatable dishes before them. But in a stunning display of inverse proportionality, the more they had to whine about the meal, the lighter the atmosphere became. And suddenly, it was as if the past 64 days were a mere blip in their lives. 64 days apart. 64 days of acknowledging that what had been isn't what it was anymore. It's certainly peculiar, as oddly imperceptible as the days leading up to the 502nd one.

It makes Keiji think back to those moments that had felt like liminal spaces, an endlessly dreary landscape of speculations. Moments where he would wonder if the love in him had been enough, if the love in Kotaro had been enough, and if the love that existed in the spaces between them had been enough to replace what love trickled out of them respectively over time. He doesn't let himself come up with an answer, lets them hang in the air instead. Too afraid to admit to himself that perhaps the love had been enough all along. Maybe even more than enough. But that the love had just never been for them to give to each other, that it had been packaged differently so that it stubbornly jams against the mail slot. A wrong address.

They manage to eat enough to feel sated and after they split the bill, they finally leave the restaurant and step outside where the evening chill gets hallmarked by the visible puffs of air that appear while they talk.

"Let me walk you home," Kotaro offers.

Keiji doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no either. And so they walk and carry on with conversation and as much as Keiji wishes to get lost in all of it, he feels something gradually chip away at him from the inside. And so with every laugh, with every accidental graze of elbows and shoulders, with every utterance of his name that had once been a clumsily enunciated 'Akaashi' from a distant past, Keiji feels less and less of something and more and more of something else.

They eventually reach his doorstep and then there's just the faraway sound of traffic and the white noise of Keiji's neighbors.

Keiji looks up at Kotaro who even after 64 days--hell, even after all these years since Keiji had moved on from the sport that had brought them together--still manages to slip on the same expression that says  _ there's something I need to say, but I can't say it. _ And so Keiji obliges. Even when he's no longer the setter to his ace, no longer the boyfriend, he finds himself obliging all the same.

"Would you like to come in for tea?" Keiji asks. 

Kotaro nods. "I would like that."

They remove their shoes at the  _ genkan _ , too small a space for two men of their statures and so Kotaro ends up bumping into him which Keiji is sure he had no intention of doing and when Kotaro snatches his elbow in time to catch him, pulling him close to his chest, Keiji tells himself it's an accident all the same. An accident, an accident, an accident. 

Semantic satiation.

And Keiji is up against the wall as Kotaro kisses him. Deep and desperate. They tug off each other's coats while simultaneously grabbing at the front of their sweaters. They bring the commotion and heat further inside the apartment, stepping over their shoes and discarded outerwear and stumbling into the bedroom where Keiji feels the softness of his mattress and the hardness of Kotaro on top of him.

The kisses travel from Keiji's mouth to his jaw and to the sensitive flesh of his neck. They gasp and groan and curse in the frenzy of rising hunger. Keiji feels hands by the hem of his sweater then the touch shifts to the waistband of his pants and along his belt. He understands.

As they continue to kiss, Keiji works on unbuckling his own belt and once he's popped open the button, Kotaro's hands dive in to push his pants down until he's completely rid of them.

"Can I touch you?" Kotaro pants.

Keiji nods and soon, his boxer briefs are being yanked down to his calves.

"Wait," Keiji raises himself on his elbows. "I-I want to touch you too."

"In a bit," Kotaro tells him and Keiji sees him lick his palm before he reaches down to wrap the same hand around his hardening cock.

Keiji almost passes out from the sensation.

"Fuck, fuck," Keiji sighs, eyelids fluttering shut. 

Kotaro strokes him slowly, thumb occasionally swiping at the head leaking precum. Once he presses down on his slit and Keiji sobs out a plea. Keiji knows he could cum like this, thighs spread because Kotaro has positioned himself between them, effectively caging him with his arms. Keiji can only squirm and buck his hips up, but he remains certain that he could cum like this. Yet he concentrates on making sure he doesn't go completely over the edge. He won't allow it without touching Kotaro at least once.

"Please," he says. "Let me touch you."

The strokes halt and he watches Kotaro get up and strip off his bottoms before he joins him back in bed, trapping Keiji below him once again. Keiji gasps when he feels him hot and hard and thick against his thigh. Kotaro is on his elbows and knees and so, so close to Keiji that he can feel Kotaro’s racing heartbeat against his own chest. He brings a hand to cup Kotaro’s cheek, letting his thumb skim the area below the corner of his eye with all the fine-tuned tenderness Keiji has for him. Kotaro captures his mouth in another kiss, but this time, they move with purpose. Slowly, deliberately. Keiji feels like he’s floating in a dream.

The initial roll of Kotaro’s hips snaps him out of the dream, his mind alert and receptive to the onslaught of external stimuli. This moment is real, he tells himself. The flames of pleasure setting his nerve-endings ablaze are real. Kotaro, strong and ardent in the way he grinds down on him is real. Real, real, real.

Keiji can sense the oncoming swell of his orgasm. Close, but still out of his reach. There's no harmonious rhythm to their movements as he grinds up with more urgency, his muscles on the verge of cramping, but he bites his lower lip and forges on, grunts and moans blending in with the other lewd noises in the room. 

Then Kotaro tilts his face upwards, a finger below his chin. Keiji moans softly at the sight of his blown pupils, slackened jaw, and flushed countenance. They finally lock eyes and the simple act sends Kotaro tipping over almost instantly, reaching a crescendo that results in him spilling all over Keiji's thighs and pelvis. He ultimately collapses in a spent heap as he burrows his head in the crook of Keiji's neck.

Keiji is almost there, so close to catching up to him. So close to reaching him.

_ I'm there, Kotaro. I'm there. I'm here. _

Then he hears it. A sharp inhale followed by a broken sob. And Kotaro is shaking on top of him. Something wet sticks to the skin of his neck.

_ He's crying. _

"Hey," Keiji soothes as he starts rubbing his back "Shhh, it's okay. It's okay, Kotaro."

Kotaro lets out a wail and all Keiji could do is to hold him tighter, to give Kotaro permission to cling onto something so that he doesn’t drift further away.

“Kotaro,” Keiji whispers, brushing sweat-matted locks of hair away from his face. “Please talk to me. Just tell me anything.”

“Her life ended just like that,” Kotaro mumbles against his shoulder. “She let it end just like that. I don’t know why, Keiji. I just don’t understand why.”

Then Keiji feels the weight of him being lifted away as Kotaro peels himself off of him. There’s a flash of fear in his mind, an almost horrifying thought of Kotaro fumbling around for his garments. A ‘please wait’ lays dutifully ready to slink past his teeth and out of his kiss-bitten lips.

But Kotaro stays and he rolls over instead until he’s on his back and laying beside Keiji. He hears him breathe in, sees the rise and fall of his chest, sees the taut cum-stricken skin over abdominal muscles and the line of hair that runs to meet the cock that is no longer hard between his thighs. 

“I’m sorry,” Kotaro says suddenly. 

Keiji clears his throat. “You have nothing to feel sorry for.”

The exhale Kotaro lets out is shaky. “I just thought that if I didn’t think about it--didn’t try to understand the reasons why--then it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

There’s a beat of silence, a pregnant pause.

“After all,” Kotaro continues. “That’s what I did after we...after we stopped seeing each other.”

It was as if Keiji was underwater, hearing sounds travel through the mass of fluid that’s encasing him, waterlogged words reaching his ears that are sufficiently comprehensible, but muddled due to willful resistance.

He feels the numbness creeping up again as he remembers all those times throughout the last 63 days that he’s spent coming up with answers to the whys and the hows behind the unlikely ending to their story. From semantic satiation to thinking that perhaps it could have been the distance, that pehaps the absence of longer heated nights together might have been the culprit all along. 

Sometimes Keiji had even blamed volleyball and the unpredictability of where Kotaro’s passions for it could take him, an unspoken fear that one day they would both wake up to the news that Kotaro would have to put even more physical miles between them, and Keiji simply acceding to it had that ever been the case. 

But here was Kotaro, doing the exact opposite, and deliberately choosing instead to turn a blind eye on the reasons why everything had to end in just 502 days. Yet Keiji knows that in his heart of hearts, he can never find it in himself to be mad at Kotaro. He tried. Keiji tried. They both did. It just so happens that 502 days was really all it had taken for their story and perhaps similar to the phenomenon of semantic satiation, their ending was a phenomenon that had no direct and straightforward explanation. 

It just  _ was _ .  _ Just is. _

“I better go,” Kotaro whispers in the dark. “Still have to catch the first train tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” Keiji says, unmoving.

He feels the bed shift, listens to the rustling of clothing from where he’s laying flat on the mattress. He briefly thinks about the transformative power of grief and the many ways it can take shape--shapes that are intimate, unsightly, and confusing. Kotaro had enough grief 64 days ago as he does today. It was simply packaged differently, Keiji concludes. Just like love.

_ The love is enough,  _ Keiji thinks. 

Before the numbness possesses him completely, Keiji sits up. 

“Kotaro?” 

The person he has loved and believes to continually love already has one foot out the doorway of his bedroom. He turns around. “Yes?”

“Can I see you off tomorrow?” Keiji says. 

A smile he has loved and believes to continually love appears. “Sure.”

They bid each other good night afterwards and Keiji stays in bed, awaiting the soft click of his apartment door closing. Once he’s certain he’s alone, he gets dressed, finishes locking up, then retreats to his bathroom to wash off the smells of grief and love.

___________________

Keiji arrives at the station an hour early and takes his time to eat breakfast at one of the station’s restaurants. Kotaro gets there just as Keiji was about to finish his second cup of coffee and while Kotaro comes in looking slightly disheveled, it’s easy to spot the brightness in his eyes. Keiji smiles at him. He smiles back.

“Morning, Keiji.”

“Good morning.”

They sit across from each other. He looks up at him--bold and beautiful Bokuto Kotaro who reminds Keiji of thunderstorms and spring mornings and all that is naturally unapologetic and sincere about the universe. The protagonist of his world. And yet--

_ And yet _

“Do you think we ever really loved each other?” Keiji asks like he’s curious about the weather. 

“I did.”

_ Did _

“I actually still love you,” Kotaro continues.

_ Still. _

“I love you, Keiji. Just...just not in that way that I used to.”

_ Not in that way that you used to. _

Love still exists in him.That much is true. It’s in Kotaro and in Keiji and definitely in the spaces that exist between them. It was simply packaged differently and Kotaro seems to have come to terms with that. Keiji counts. It's been 65 days since everything ended. 1560 hours. He's thinking about when it will be his turn to accept things as they are now. As they have already been for some time. 

Kotaro glances at his watch. "My train's leaving in ten minutes."

Keiji has been on Earth long enough to know that when people bring up time, it's a courteous code to imply that they have somewhere else to be. And Keiji has been on Earth navigating around Kotaro long enough to know that he's not one to speak in codes. After all, that's one of the things Keiji loves about him. Bokuto Kotaro--uninhibited, honest, open. But today he speaks in code to Keiji. He wonders whether or not this will be the last time he does so.

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to miss your train,” Keiji replies with code.

_ Now would be the time that he would be throwing his arms open for a hug. _

The intercom makes routine announcements. Arrival and departure timestamps, a bullet point list of reminders to passengers in the station. Kotaro slips on his backpack. He doesn’t open his arms afterwards and instead he lets them fall to his sides. He doesn’t carve out a space for Keiji to fit himself in. There’s no hug. But he gives Keiji a smile for the road.

“Bye, Keiji.”

“Bye, Kotaro.”

And all Keiji sees is his back shrinking in the distance. He then begins to expect the numbness to swallow him whole. He waits and waits. It doesn’t arrive. It never does. He rules out feeling too much either. Everything is the same as it was. As it has always been. 

Kotaro turns a corner and Keiji loses sight of him. The protagonist of his world, the protagonist of his world, the protagonist of his world.

As Keiji exits the station, he resets the counter in his head. 

_ Day one. _

**Author's Note:**

> reposted it after much internal debate. I love BokuAka btw. This is just one of those Hurts So Good moments tbh. This was really just self-indulgent angst tbh 😔


End file.
